Heart Body Soul
by inkbender
Summary: Heartless. Nobody. Hollow. Just when the balance of the worlds is restored, the final enemy born from people's souls threatens the Kingdom of Light once again. FUSION FIC: Kingdom Hearts with Bleach elements. ON INDEFINITE HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1

**Heart, Body, and Soul**

Heartless. Nobody. Hollow. Just when the balance of the worlds is restored, a new enemy threatens the Kingdom of Light once again. Sora, Kairi, and Riku scramble to stem the flow of Hollows before the worlds are overwhelmed.

_A heart that balance light and darkness. A body with the strength of will to survive. And a soul, the existence of life. Every living creature on every world possesses these three components._

_First came the Unversed, dark beings produced of a heart split cleanly into two halves. These extensions of the half of darkness vanished when the two halves were rejoined, ultimately resulting in eternal slumber._

_Second came the Heartless, hearts consumed by darkness. The embodiment of darkness continued to seek out other living hearts, hearts that breathe and feel and strive for a purpose._

_Third came the Nobodies, remnants of the bodies vacated by Heartless. These entities persisted in living on even without hearts, becoming individuals in their own right; those with stronger wills were able to maintain their original form, while other weaker-willed subjects lost their shape and were manipulated by higher Nobodies._

_The fourth is just beginning to spill into the worlds. The soul of the being, the spirit of life that allows the body to exist. Whether the heart leaves the body as a Heartless or a pure pink sphere of energy, whether the body dissolves away or lives on as a Nobody—the soul continues to drift aimlessly until it is found and guided into the afterlife. Most souls eventually pass on to the next world; however, those laden with ambitions or regrets are unable to move forward, and, if left to fester too long on their world, may reform into the final enemy._

_The Hollows._

* * *

><p>A blast of black dust showers Kairi as <em>Destiny's Embrace<em> shears through a row of Shadows. The soot that sticks to the sweat dripping down her forehead stings in her eyes. In precaution, she raises the hilt of the short Keyblade so that the shaft protects her torso while she attempts to wipe the grime from her eyes. A claw clinks off her block, and a strange power surging from the Keyblade to her mind causes her to instinctively thrust forward in a powerful payback. Another Heartless explodes.

"Way to go, Kairi!" cheers Sora from somewhere to her far right, and, even though she can't see him (or anything, for that matter), she can picture the Disney-perfect happy-hero grin plastered across his face.

Her Keyblade provides her a sense of the spatial orientation of her enemies, but that isn't enough to compensate for the black gunk that is still trying to seep into her eyes. As static electricity begins to crackle along her fingers and the swinging keychain, she shouts to her comrades, "CLEAR?"

Two whooshes of air, then two replies of confirmation. One is bright as the clear blue sky above them, the other as solid and tranquil as the stone beneath. "Clear."

Kairi swings her Keyblade into the air. The keychain smacks her in the face on the way up, and she winces. "Thundara!"

Around her, a hail of lightning bolts touch down. The air hums with electricity and crackling heat. Her auburn hair flies haphazardly in all directions, each seeking to release its buildup of electrons. Though she can feel the air ionizing around her and Heartless disappearing in puffs of smoke, she doesn't flinch. When the final bolt disappears in a flash, she wipes the crusted black free from her eyes and immediately looks around for her friends.

In front of her, Sora and Riku are making quick work of the remaining Soldiers and Fat Bandits. Neither seems to break a sweat, but, since Kairi is so exhausted, she taps into the magic held within _Destiny's Embrace_ and casts a group Cure.

In the few seconds that Sora glances up in surprise at the green flower unfolding above his head, Riku darts into Sora's territory on the palace wall of Agrabah and cleans up the rest of the Heartless. "Hey, those were mine!" Sora protests as Riku slings _The_ _Way to Dawn_ over one shoulder.

"Too slow," Riku smirks.

"I was distracted."

"Distracted by what?" Kairi calls indignantly. When Sora's face freezes in immediate, frantic apology, Kairi lets out a short laugh. "Seriously, Sora, I'm not offended."

Riku punches Sora on the shoulder a little harder than necessary, knocking him off balance. "Don't be so uptight. Loosen up a bit."

"Hey!" Sora yells, regaining his balance. "I'm always loose. Loosey caboosey. That's me."

Kairi grins as her two best friends launch into another never-ending argument, which will probably end in another no-hold-barred sparring match. In the meanwhile, she digs into one of the millions of pockets in her pink miniskirt and pulls out a tiny mirror.

She looks absolutely awful. Black soot is streaked all over her face, running down in rivulets from her eyes like a bad application of mascara. Her eyes still water from the dust stuck behind her eyelids; but here in Agrabah, water is an extremely precious resource, and it'd be wasteful to even wash her face. Her hair is more brown than red, darkened by Heartless residue, and much of it is still slightly suspended above her scalp from leftover static electricity. Only her deep blue eyes are unchanged, and they stare back at her with a playful sparkle.

She's holding her own in Heartless cleanup. Sora and Riku didn't even look over at her to double-check her progress. Well, Sora looked over only ten or fifteen times; Riku was the one who trusted her to take care of herself. He was the one who gave her _Destiny's Embrace_ in the first place, when Sora had been overwhelmed in the Castle That Never Was. Together, she and Riku blasted through the last waves of Heartless (or more like he blasted and she supported) to reach the Keyblade Master.

And, when Sora needed two companions to traverse the worlds for Heartless and Nobody cleanup, Riku lobbied for her addition to the team. Kairi wasn't about to lose Sora and Riku again, despite Sora's strong disagreement on the matter; but when Riku joined her side, Sora gave in.

And now she's been to seven worlds. Seven worlds she never knew existed! Each world with its own culture, traditions, food, and experiences. In each world, she's gained scars and muscle and technique, the ability to wield _Destiny's Embrace_ with greater skill, the memories formed with friends that she'll hold close to her heart forever.

This wild, dust-streaked image reflected in the mirror before her? She wouldn't trade that image for the world.

Before Kairi snaps the personal mirror shut, she sees a brief glance of white-blond hair framing an anxious face. A sense of foreboding fills her as she stares at the now shut mirror. Danger. Something is coming. Something bad is going to happen.

The air shimmers with heat as her eyes scan the palace walls. The town within is sheltered from sandstorm damage, but it's the middle of the day now and temperatures are sky high. The world's residents are all staying indoors, probably murmuring about the strange people outside crazy enough to stand in the full power of the desert sun. Kairi's sweating buckets, yet Sora and Riku, now exchanging light barbs and light strikes with street sweeper brooms, still haven't broken a sweat. She notices the glint of a spherical, ice blue crystal nestled an armband on Sora's wrist; a parting present from somebody called Yuffie.

Something draws her eye to the palace gates, set above the rest of the city streets so that, even though she and Sora and Riku are in the poorer slums, she has a full view of the exotic palace where Princess Jasmine resides. At first, she doesn't see anything but shimmering heat waves, but then something stirs. Something huge. It's so huge, it completely blocks the palace gates.

Kairi feels the hairs on the back of her neck rising. Whatever it is, it's masking its presence. It doesn't want to be seen. She can barely see it as it is, only features distinguishable by curved heat-wave-like projections. The air is bulging, contorting, twisting the longer she stares at it. She can see a definitely shape now—rotund, with a wrinkled expression, and an ancient aura that she can just… sense.

"Sora," she calls. Immediately, Sora's crouching next to her, excessively alarmed. Riku is frozen in an awkward position in the middle of the street, the street sweeper broom held comically above his head for a killing blow.

"What's wrong?" Sora asks in concern. He smells clean and fresh with a tint of perspiration.

Kairi doesn't look at him. If she looks away from the strange apparition standing in front of the palace gates, she'll lose the image. And losing sight of the target is a bad idea. She points instead. "Do you see something? In front of the palace gates."

Sora follows her finger, staring intently into the distance. Riku joins them, and she smells the shampoo in his silvery hair. After a while, Sora links his hands behind his head and shrugs. "Nope."

"What are you looking at?" Riku asks.

"There's something… big. It's just standing there," Kairi says eloquently. "I can't see it that well either, though."

Sora pipes, "Are you sure it isn't just my beautiful, happy face you're longing—"

Before he can stick his spiky head into her face, Kairi firmly plants a hand on his skull and forces him into the ground at her feet. The entire time, she keeps her eyes trained on the apparition in front of her. "No, I'm serious. Even if you can't see it, don't you _feel_ it?"

A pressure in the air. That's what it feel like, emanating from the… thing standing guard in front of the palace.

Riku nods gravely. "So you sense it too."

The confirmation only increases her ability to see the specter, and she gasps as a definitely outline pops into existence. Moving, breathing, crouching in front of the palace gates protectively. Sora ceases his exaggerated choking on sand beneath her feet to lie still as the silence stretches on.

"There's something there," Kairi breathes finally. "There's definitely something there. I can almost see it."

"Are you sure?" Sora asks again, jumping to his feet in a flash. "I still don't see anything. Just a lot of heat waves. Hey look! Another group of Heartless! Oh wait, just a caravan."

"I feel it too," Riku murmurs. "Should we get closer? Maybe then we can Scan for it."

Only Riku looks at Sora for the final decision. Kairi would too, except she's got her eyes fixed on the ghostly apparition a mile away.

Sora glances at Kairi, then at Riku. "I think we should triple-check the streets to make it clear that the Heartless aren't welcome here. Especially since Jasmine plans on parading through the main street this evening. There'll be so many hearts jammed together that any Heartless packs within a ten mile radius will want to come."

Kairi's eyes widen, but she doesn't turn to address her friends. "That thing is just sitting in front of the gates. If we don't chase it off, Jasmine won't even be able to get out of the palace." Riku murmurs in agreement.

Sora's brow furrows in deep thought. "I don't see anything, don't feel anything, don't spooky-wooky sense anything… but I trust both of you. Let's check it out."

* * *

><p>The moment they clear the walls of the wealthy district and enter the palace grounds, <em>Destiny's Embrace<em> picks up on the target, solidifying Kairi's vision. Suddenly, she can see much more of the ghostly image shifting in front of them. Judging from Riku's sudden intake of breath, she figures he must see it too.

"I see," Riku states simply, slowly down. Sora glides another twenty feet before turning around.

"Do you guys see anything yet?" he asks anxiously. Both Kairi and Riku are staring at some point in space, somewhere in front of the gates. He just sees the gates. And the palace. nothing else.

Kairi, on the other hand, can see the entire thing: a wizened parody of a Sultan, judging from the frayed, weathered robes the reptilian creature is wearing. The figure is no longer humanoid, but rather feral, crouching over onto its hands and feet. Though its skin is a diseased, rotten gray, its limbs are thick and muscled, able to support the creature's barreled body. But most prominently, the creature has two defining characteristics. Its face is hidden behind a mask creased in a million wrinkles, all of them turned downwards at the edges for an overall wrathful expression. And, in the place where a normal human heart should be, there's only a gaping black hole.

Unconsciously, she recoils and whimpers, automatically sliding into a defensive stance as taught to her by Sora. Sora notices and runs back to them, pulling _Oathkeeper_ out of thin air in a flash of white light. "What is it?" His own Keyblade jerks, and, whirling around, Sora's eyes fix onto the creature's chest cavity. "Uhhh… I see… a black hole?" he says in confusion.

Kairi blinks. When she opens her eyes, the spirit is still there. It's translucent, though that may only be because of its massive size. It glances over them but doesn't move to attack, only surveying them with a somewhat dimwitted intelligence. "N-Nobody?" she asks timidly. The hole in its chest implies the lack of a heart, but no Heartless she's seen ever exhibited that quality. And the mask… she can't remember a Nobody that wore a mask. Plus Nobodies never exhibited this strange pressure. Not a physical pressure, but something that she feels pressing down against her mentally.

Riku shakes his head. "It doesn't emit the same aura," he denies. "Heartless, Nobodies… they all have a different sense of darkness, a different scent. This is completely different."

Unsure of what action to take, all three simply stare at each other: worried Kairi, determined Riku, clueless Sora.

* * *

><p>In a dark, empty hall sits an unmoving man, his face obscured by shadows prevalent in the room. His fingers lie draped motionlessly over the edge of the armrest of his simple white throne. Nothing in his body moves. Nothing in the gigantic black throne room moves. Even the only other man standing slightly to the right of the throne doesn't twitch a muscle; his intense emerald-green eyes set within a starkly white face never look away from his superior on the throne.<p>

Finally, the man on the throne smiles. His fingers curl into a fist.

* * *

><p>The monster in front of the three friends rises to its feet. Even Sora gasps as the figure turns slowly, kicking up small poofs of dust, and simply phases through the palace gates. As it stalks slowly through the walls, a long tail unwinds itself and swings lazily on the ground, sending up clouds of sand and dust into the air. Its frayed clothes crackle ominously as it disappears into the palace, leaving the echoes of a muttered name.<p>

"_**Princess…**_ _**princess…**_"


	2. Chapter 2

Riku is the first to sprint towards the palace gates, and Sora's already on top of the situation. A beam of light shoots from the tip of _Oathkeeper_, slipping between the two shut doors. On the other side, a booming sound echoes, indicating the opening of the door; immediately, they begin to slide outwards, just in time for Riku to slip inside neatly. Sora grabs Kairi's hand, and together, they make a break for the opening gates just as the first explosion rocks the palace grounds.

"Reflega!" comes a shout from inside, and a ripple of hexagonal tiles reveals the impact of falling boulders against Riku's spell. Sora and Kairi catch up, and the three wait until the avalanche of boulders ceases.

In all his trips to Agrabah, Sora has never been beyond the palace gates. Now that he's finally inside, he can't see anything through the dust. He can't see anything at all, but Kairi and Riku are already running around the pile of palace chunks with their Keyblades and he follows.

"It's over there!" Kairi motions, and Riku allows her to take the lead, despite her lower speed. Sora and Riku jog along behind until Kairi suddenly stops and points her Keyblade confidently, which glows with magic. "Stopra!"

Sora glances around anxiously. His Scan picks up on a presence ahead of him, but he still can't see anything ahead. Kairi and Riku, on the other hand, burst forward to take advantage of their opening.

There's still a lot of dust in the air which reduces visibility, and Sora touches the materia on his armband, given to him by the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee. Dashing forward to join his friends, Sora yells, "Aeroga!"

A blast of wind whirls around him, driving dust away and bearing him up into the air. His Keyblade quivers as it nears the enemy, and Sora swings when a sudden burst of energy surging from the Keyblade into him makes him aware of the figure in front of him. Even though he can't see the object per say, _Oathkeeper_ is able to sense and attack the target. It's all he can rely upon for now.

Kairi and Riku hover above him, born upon his Aeroga spell. Kairi looks slightly surprised at her increased air time, but takes advantage of her heightened position to fire off the long list of magic spells she's picked up on. She really has a knack for support magic, complementing Donald's offensive magic; just one shot of Fire has set a portion of the target ablaze. Riku continues to lay powerful blows into the transparent enemy, and from his position below, Sora can see slight wavers in the air as the enemy shudders.

Suddenly the entire adversary is in motion, released from Kairi's Stopra. It droops, sinking downwards; Sora hears the shifting of a massive object next to him and swings. His Keyblade connects solidly, but the hide of the creature is tough, and _Oathkeeper_ bounces off. Aeroga keeps him in the air, and he tries to hit the monster another time. This time, the tines of his Keyblade sink in slightly, each stroke dealing a greater amount of damage. The final stroke sinks in and tears satisfactorily, and Sora pushes away as the monster howls in pain and rage.

Before he knows it, a gigantic force slams into him, crushing the air from his lungs. Knocked out of the range of Aeroga, he begins to fall. A force surging through his Keyblade allows him to recover and deal a formidable aerial payback to an invisible force he can't see, digging into a tender area. The pointed star-shaped tines tear their way through, but the monster shakes free, flinging Sora into the air.

"Sora!" Kairi screams as Sora flies in an undignified, uncontrolled manner.

"Sora, you sap," Riku yells. "Watch it! Keep your eyes on the opponent!"

"That's the problem!" Sora fires back. "It's not like I can actually see—"

"Reflera!" Kairi screams, and blue hexagonal tiles flash six inches in front of Sora's eyes as something huge slams into them. In return, the tiles blaze hot white and explode outwards, embedding like shards of glass into the shape of a lashing tail.

"I got it!" Sora yells, pulling _Oblivion_ out of one of his many zippered pockets and swapping the two keychains quickly. Positioning his Keyblade pointing straight down, he dives for what he hopes is the base of the tail. The disappearance of _Oblivion_'s jagged black tines and patterned shaft into nothingness, along with a sudden force of black particles similar to Heartless grime blasting into his face, confirms this.

The monster howls in agony, and Sora suddenly finds himself being thrown around like a rag doll. Riku yells above him and Kairi screams, but he's unable to comprehend either of their words.

A gigantic claw rakes along the length of his back, dragging him free. Tangled in his belts and buckles, Sora is unable to slide free and is lifted into the air violently, leaving _Oblivion _stuck in the creature's tail. He's a lot closer to Riku and Kairi now and can distinguish their words.

"Sora!"

"Sora, you dimwit! It can live without its tail! Attack its head!"

Putrid air washes over him, and Sora looks for the source. He still can't see much; only the torn remains of the palace walls and the interior of what he assumes is Princess Jasmine's private chambers, judging from the presence of the screaming Arabic princess hiding in the corner of the room.

A flush of darkness abruptly obscures Princess Jasmine from view; Sora is able to visualize the monster as he continues to inhale the stench washing over him. He spots a gaping maw of perfect white teeth that prepares to engulf him. Within that maw is another, smaller set of teeth which salivates eagerly. Something tugs at his… not his heart, but something underneath, something deeper. He momentarily blacks out as the tugging becomes more persistent and the double set of jaws prepares to engulf him.

"TRINITY LIMIT!"

Their voices are much closer to him. In fact, right next to him: Kairi's soft skin pushing against his left shoulder, Riku's muscled deltoid pressing against his own. Lines of energy tracing out an intricate Trinity Mark serve as a platform for the trio to stand on. With both of his friends directly behind him, they raise their Keyblades in unison and fire beams of pure light outwards. The monster recoils and its claw tears through Sora's clothes as it stumbles backwards into the palace. Screams echo from within the palace itself, but the relentless Trinity Limit continues to bash in the face of the invisible monster in front of them—

A rain of white pebbles materializes from thin air in front of them, dropping to the floor below. Piece by piece, larger chunks of white stone break away. The image of the monster wavers, then becomes visible. Sora can see the entire creature, and it's unlike anything he's ever seen before—Heartless or Nobody. He can see the black hole in its chest where its heart should be, and the pieces of white mask cracking in front of him reveal a face which might have been kind and grandfatherly once upon a time, but is now wracked with crazed obsession. Its double mouth creaks open, and through the agony, it croaks, "_**My princess… Jasmine…**_"

Sora hesitates as the Trinity Limit wraps up. The mask is almost completely removed, save for one chunk still covering an empty eye socket. The uncovered eye is bloodshot and crazed, darting around frenetically. The monster turns around slowly, peering into the hole it created in the palace. Into Princess Jasmine's private chambers. "_**My princess… princess…**_"

The Princess of Heart within ceases screaming. Everything is quiet for a moment. Sora can't stop watching, repulsed and curious at the same time. Then, Jasmine whispers, "Grandfather?"

A flash of white light accompanied by wisps of darkness. In one swift strike, Riku has cleaved the monster in two, from the back of its head down to the hole in its chest. The monster wails desperately as it begins to disintegrate into dark dust, but instead of splashing onto them as grime, the dust evaporates into glowing blue particles and dissipates into the atmosphere.

Sora and Kairi alight on the ground as the rest of the monster dissolves. Kairi makes eye contact with Riku as a large green flower blossoms upside down above Sora's head, sprinkling golden particles into his skin. Riku glances down at the tines of _The Way to Dawn_, where a couple blue particles still linger, then back up at Kairi.

"What was that?"

* * *

><p>Riku glances at the few glowing blue sparks floating in a little glass jar in the computer's scanning bay, then up at the Gummi Ship's communications screen, which is projected onto the windshield. Visibility is reduced considerably, so Riku has the ship's autopilot on cruise. "What is this?" Riku asks.<p>

Cid's scruffy face fills the entirety of the projected screen: stiff blond hair, five o'clock shadow, permanent goggle marks embedded in his forehead, and a toothpick hanging between his teeth. He grimaces as he analyzes the preliminary data sent to him by the Gummi Ship's computer.

A brief memory surfaces in Riku's mind: in the brief time he'd spent fighting in the Underworld in Olympus, training to get even stronger than he already was, he'd seen a pyrefly. A natural phenomenon brought in by a contestant from another world, pyreflies were basically concentrations of disembodied spiritual energy wandering aimlessly. They left behind glittering trails of shimmering white particles which eventually dissipated into the atmosphere. The sample he'd obtained from Agrabah looked similar, except these were a soft blue.

Riku is startled out of his thoughts by a loud harrumph from Cid. "You've got a problem, kid."

"Say what?"

"This sample size is too small," Cid growls. "Six specks of identifiable material? The databases don't match any data or past research to the electromagnetic and photovoltaic output of these particles, but I contribute that to the fact that you've only got six specks of dust! The error of margin is way too high, kiddo."

Riku's brow furrows. "So you need more of this glowing stuff in order to analyze it?"

"I can't make heads or tails of it," Cid answers, wiping his nose with the back of his fist. "The thing is, whatever you've got in there doesn't seem to be alive, yet the readings for life are off the charts. This isn't something science can analyze, so Yuffie going to fetch Merlin."

"Who's Merlin?" Kairi whispers, patching up Sora's torn clothes. Sora slumbers in the back area, recovering his strength.

"An informed magician," Riku replies. "The Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee's headquarters are located in his house."

A poof of smoke on Cid's side of the screen announces the arrival of the esteemed wizard with hyper ninja Yuffie in tow. Cid leans back and allows Merlin to inspect the data.

"Interesting," Merlin murmurs as he pushes his spectacles further up his nose and peers at the screen. "It appears as if these particles are small bits of spiritual energy."

"What does that mean?" Kairi asks.

Merlin's eyebrows rise as he looks at the Princess of Heart. "Surely you should know; I hear that you are an exceptionally talented magic user. Magic is simply the manifestation of an excess of one's own spirit energy."

Riku, Kairi, and Yuffie fix Merlin with blank stares. Cid adds helpfully, "What the hell?"

Merlin sighs. "Everybody has a spirit, or a soul, if you will; the soul is the source of life to every organism. Every creature has a basal level of this life energy that replenishes and maintains itself as long as the creature is alive. Some beings, however, are born with an excess of spirit energy, more than is necessary to keep them alive; this excess is manifested as magic, and can be directed via several different mechanisms for differing utilizations, whether destructive or healing."

"So how do these… spirit particles relate to the monster we fought?" Riku asks.

"That… I do not know," Merlin admits. "I do believe that a larger sample size would assist in the investigation of this phenomenon. You said that these spirit particles originate from an individual monster? Seek out another monster and, if possible, collect a sample from it as well. The larger the sample size, the more accurate results."

"You're asking us to _look_ for another battle?" Kairi exclaims. "What if this was a one-time thing?"

Riku shakes his head. "It wasn't. That feeling that I got around the monster… it's still with me."

If Kairi searches deep enough within herself, she can still feel the foreboding that Namine holds. Still, she doesn't want to believe it. It's only been six months since Riku and Sora came back to the islands. Only six months.

"Something big is on the horizon, and we've got to meet it head-on," Riku continues. "We'll fight it down before it gets too big. Do you have an idea on where more of these might appear?"

Cid shakes his head. "I can tell you the statistics outputted by the 'spirit particles' Merlin identified, but there's not much else that we can derive from such a small sample."

"Continue the Heartless cleanup," Merlin advises, preparing to disconnect. "But be on the lookout for those monsters."

Riku nods, also resting his hand over the disconnect button. "Alright. Over and out."

The moment the screen's projection winks out of sight, revealing the windshield once again, Riku reacts instinctively. While he wasn't able to see anything outside while the communications screen was in place, now that the windshield has been cleared, Riku spots the huge, crackling ball of energy off to the right, ready to T-bone them.

"Aren't we supposed to dodge that?" Kairi yells as Riku attempts to swerve out of the way.

"I'm trying!" he shouts, pulling against the resistive controls. "The missile has a Gravity spell attached—I can't pull away! Sora, get up here—"

"Sora's resting," Kairi interrupts plaintively.

Riku's expression darkens. "Then go wake him up! This is urgent!"

"Let me rephrase that: he's in a coma for another ten minutes for accelerated healing."

Riku splutters in exasperation. "Why—of all times—how—alright Kairi, come up here and copilot!"

Kairi stumbles into the copilot's seat, her eyes bugging at the complex controls. "What… how… what am I supposed to do?"

"Redirect the force fields to the impact site, fire counter-missiles—"

"I'll just push random buttons!"

Window washer fluid sprays across the windshield, repellant pads erect themselves in front of the Gummi Ship to push obstacles away while a grappling hook flies off into space, and a random rocket launches straight ahead.

The impact is far more violent than Kairi imagined. Her unbuckled-in body is thrown from the copilot's seat into Riku's as the ball of energy tears into the right side of the ship. The ship drops into an uncontrollable spin as it enters a world's gravity field, but before Kairi's soft body can smash into another unyielding surface, muscled arms wrap around her torso and keep her in place.

"Pull the steering wheel to the left!" Riku roars into her ear, and she obeys. The entire body of the ship groans as Kairi tries to control their tumble into the atmosphere. Flames curl around the edges of the windshield. Something explodes, vibrating throughout the ship; at this, the steering wheel goes slack and the Gummi Ship plummets towards the ocean.

* * *

><p><em>AN: If you've been directed here from my other story GP:LOL, I love you doubly - I seriously don't know anybody who likes both Glee and Kingdom Hearts. They're sort of two separate worlds, on two different planes of existence. But seriously, I've been with Kingdom Hearts far longer than Glee... and Kingdom Hearts is far more consistent, has a ton of depth and character development, has plenty of supernatural ability to play around with... AND ITS FREAKIN' DISNEY. _


	3. Chapter 3

Sora awakes to smoke, blaring alarms, and roaring winds. He can't exactly remember how he got to this point—he fought an invisible enemy in Agrabah, was stripped of his jacket and shirt by the claw of a creeper-grandfather-monster, bled profusely until he passed out…

His senses slowly return to him, and he realizes he's sprawled out on the ground and still shirtless. Glowing orbs are spilled out on the ground around him; he recognizes Blizzaga and Esuna in front of him and grabs them. Each one was given to him by his friends Yuffie and Aerith in the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee and are called materia: an external source of magic that don't rely on his own innate magic or the magic in his Keyblade. However, their uses are limited, and Sora keeps them around mostly as a reminder of his allies. Leon's gift, Firaga, still rests in the armband where he keeps them all; it appears to have been ripped off his shoulder and thrown down next to Kairi's foot, which is hovering about six inches above the ground. Sora stares dumbly at her sneaker for a moment before traveling up her leg to her torso, then down her arm to her fist, where Cid's Aeroga is clenched. "You've got it," he says slowly.

Something outside crashes; the ship lurches forward and bounces, and Sora is pitched into the air. Only Kairi remains stationary, suspended in the middle of a powerful hurricane of wind cushioning the ship against rough ocean waves and sharp, rocky islands.

"Just a little bit longer!" Riku yells from the cockpit as Sora peels himself from the wall, just long enough to look outside. Water races by underneath, coming closer and closer until the ship just barely collides with its surface. Fierce winds whip ocean spray into the air as the ship bounces off the air cushion, flying another hundred or so feet towards a large, flat island.

"Whose idea was this?" Sora yelps as the ship shakes again. "Why are we skipping across the ocean like—"

A final rattling crash rocks the Gummi Ship as it finally skittles to a halt on solid land. A moment of silence, then Riku calls, "Everybody alright?"

Sora catches Kairi before she can collapse. "What happened?"

"We were attacked," Riku shouts back. "The sensors didn't pick up on the energy blast in time. The ship's gyroscope was damaged and we lost control. If Kairi hadn't remembered…"

Kairi catches her breath and wipes sweat off her brow. "In Agrabah, you were using a Freeze ability to stay cool. And then when we fought the monster, you used something to keep us in the air so we could attack its face. Something glowed in your armband."

Sora inserts Blizzaga back into the armband's slots. "Materia. How'd you know which was which, though?"

"I didn't." Kairi closes her eyes. "You were sleeping on top of your armband, so I had to heave you out of bed—sorry—but when I touched the materia, I just knew. It activated once I held it in my hand." She drops the sky blue orb into Sora's palm, and silence falls over them again.

Sora abruptly realizes that Kairi is still in his arms, hugged uncomfortably close to his bare chest. She's so close that he can smell her and her clothes and her strawberry shampoo. "Thanks," he squeezes out as he hurriedly deposits her on his vacated bed. "Where are we?"

* * *

><p>Kairi gawks openly as Sora weaves intricate circles above her. "Since… since when can you…?"<p>

Riku draws _The Way to Dawn_ in a flash of light and parries as Sora swoops in low and strikes with _Oblivion_. "Sora, get serious for once! We have to figure out some way to repair our Gummi Ship's gyroscope or—"

Laughing, Sora banks and shoots out over the ocean, where he hovers just barely out of Riku's reach. "Worry about that later, Riku! You can _fly_ here in Neverland. Aren't you even going to try?"

Riku raises his eyebrows, standing at the edge of a two-hundred foot cliff. He looks down at the Gummi Ship at the bottom of the hill behind them, then back at Sora. "You know what? I'll go back and try to repair the ship with the Gummi blocks we already have. You go flit around and see if you can get some other materials."

"No, wait, Riku! Have a little fun!" Sora's face falls as Riku turns around and starts walking down towards the scratched and dented ship. "Kairi?"

"Just believe," Kairi says softly to herself, then jumps into the air. Half a second later, she lands on the ground again.

"With all your heart," Sora adds helpfully. "Oh! And a little bit of pixie dust helps too, I guess." He swoops down over her and shakes his entire body like a wet dog, sprinkling her with warm golden sparks.

"Ew, Sora! That's gross! …Where is it all coming from?" She looks up in wonder at the loads of sparkles floating around her.

Sora inspects his body. "Um, it's popping out of my skin? Hey, you're flying!"

Kairi looks down at her feet, suspended a couple inches in the air. "I'm… I'm flying!"

Sora flies back several feet, away from the security of the cliff into the open void of space above the ocean. "You can fly!" He echoes, performing a back flip.

Kairi's triumphant expression wilts. "Uh… maybe over here above land… but not over there."

A sudden blast of noise behind them heralds the arrival of several Air Soldiers and Air Pirates. Kairi whips around, smashing into the first Air Soldier with the Keyblade that instantly materializes into her hand. Riku is there in the next moment, his speed so fast that his edges are blurred. Sora darts forward to assist, but a larger portal opens up behind him, allowing the entrance of the large, flying, draconian Wavecrest Heartless. Before it can decide what to do, Sora's _Oblivion_ smashes into the underside of its head, knocking it off balance. It veers sharply away from the cliff, going into a barrel roll that knocks Sora towards the crashing waves below. Recovering, he hovers until the Heartless spots him; then, as he launches homing fireballs out of his Keyblade, he flees into the gigantic open expanse of ocean, drawing the Wavecrest away from his friends.

"Thundara," Kairi yells, and Riku leaps away as bolts of lightning rain around. Static electricity crackles on some afterwards, allowing Riku to jump in and deal extra damage to their paralyzed, incapacitated bodies. Black dust explodes as he cleaves through two of them, each releasing a small pink heart.

With residual lightning still sizzling on _Destiny's Embrace_, Kairi slices across an Air Pirate, following with two vertical strikes and a final stab. Each thrust is accompanied it with the controlled breathing Riku taught her, keeping a cool mind while laying into the Heartless. The finishing stab ends the Air Pirate, and Kairi grins in satisfaction. Looking down, she's surprised to realize she's floating ten feet above the ground; with each strike, she had followed the Air Pirate further into the sky, and now she's hovering in midair casually, as if she's flown and fought her entire life.

The brief moment in which Kairi reflects on flying allows an Air Soldier to dart in and knock her off balance. It's a strange feeling, being Air-Tossed; the world around her blends into a mixture of blue sky, turquoise ocean, and earthy green. There's a stinging sensation on her lower back where the Air Soldier slashed and pitched her towards the sky. She can hardly move, much less react when another flying Heartless dives towards her, slamming her fifteen feet straight into the rocky ground. She coughs up something warm and metallic. _Destiny's Embrace_ skittles away from her paralyzed hand as another rain of blows and scratches lands across her torso.

The barrage of attacks is only for a second, but to Kairi, it feels like an eternity before she remembers her training and her friends.

"_Do you ever wonder where our Keyblades come from?" Sora says, sitting on the horizontal trunk of the paopu tree at sunset. The ocean in front of them sparkles in golden and pink hues._

_Riku looks up at him, standing on the ground but leaning against the trunk. "Like where they came from? Who made them in the first place? Why did the Keyblades choose us?"_

"_No," Sora says, holding out his hand. In a flash of light, the simple Kingdom Key materializes in his hand. "How can I do this? Pull the Keyblade out of thin air?"_

_Kairi laughs suddenly. "You've spent two years taking that quality for granted and you only ask now?"_

_Riku laughs as well, a short bark. "No, I've wondered that too," he says, and _The Way to Dawn_ flashes into existence next to him. In one easy throw, Riku tosses his Keyblade off the island, where it falls into the orange ocean with a small splash. Kairi gapes at him, but then Riku extends his hand and summons his Keyblade—instantly, _The Way to Dawn_ is sitting in his hand again, completely dry. "What is this weapon?" Riku muses, peering down the shaft of his Keyblade. "Where does it come from? Why does it keep coming back to us whenever we're in need and call for it? Why—what the hell are you doing?" _

"_You just looked so spacey and emo," Sora grins, his Keyblade locked with Riku's. "Snap out of it, or I'll make you eat sand!"_

In a flash of light, _Destiny's Embrace_ dissolves ten feet away and reappears in Kairi's hand, and she swipes blindly around her. The Heartless draw back to avoid her wild swing, pausing; Riku takes advantage of the situation and cuts through three of them before the remaining two can react. The first Air Soldier rushes him, and Riku parries and counters, destroying it. The second flies in on the first's tailwind, attacking as Riku parries the first; even as its comrade explodes into black dust and a released heart, the second Heartless Air-Tosses Riku and prepares to deal a critical hit.

Kairi throws her Keyblade like a boomerang. The Strike Raid pummels the final Heartless until it explodes, then arcs around to return to Kairi's hand. She leaps eight feet into the air and catches it just as Riku regains his feet.

"Cura," she intones, and the cut on her lower back seals, cutting off the slow but steady flow of blood dripping down her back. The bruising on her abdomen also fades away, allowing her freer access of movement.

Riku also looks refreshes as the golden-green light dims and disappears. He slams his gaping jaw shut and resumes a casual expression as she floats downwards, finally alighting on the ground. "Fun fight?" he says gruffly. "You _flew_ and fought at the same time. How does that feel?"

"It's harder," she gasps, catching her breath. "But at least I can finish my combos. You should try it sometime. Where's Sora?"

In reply, Riku points out to the ocean. Kairi's eyes bug as she spots a tiny dot whizzing around a gigantic blue dragon. Occasional sparks mark the contact between the two battlers. Despite the huge difference in size, the Heartless seems to be losing the battle, drooping lower and lower towards the ocean while the speck continues to dodge and deal damage at the same rate as usual. Finally, in a flash of light, the Heartless dissolves and a large heart rises.

"Way to go, Sora!" Kairi cheers, jumping into the air and hovering again. The sunlight glints off the speck's waving Keyblade, and the Keyblade Master begins to fly towards them.

* * *

><p>In the middle of a black-marbled throne room, a single man in white sits on a simple white throne. His fingers drum against the armrest of his throne, each beat against the surface falling at a regular, measured interval.<p>

* * *

><p>A strange sensation creeps over Kairi's skin. For a moment, white bangs fall into her eyes; the wind whips through her thin white dress and chills her legs. The next moment, her pink miniskirt covers her body once again, its front a mass of torn fabric; dark red hair frames her face, disturbed by the wind. She looks down at Riku; judging from the expression of shock mirrored in Riku's eyes, Kairi figures he must have seen her brief transformation. Still, the sense of foreboding lingers: something big is about to happen.<p>

The air between Sora and her contorts and darkens, as if a heavy mist has settled upon it. A new portal opens up, also from the Corridors of Darkness; but the creature that steps from it is not a Heartless, and the aura it emits is far more sinister than that of even an Organization XIII member.

Its tattered white robes flow freely in the wind, yet no body is revealed underneath it. Two clawed hands extend from black sleeves, but even these appendages seem to be integrated into its voluminous cloak; no face is apparent, only a white mask partially obscured by a dark hood. The cloak is bound together by a single clip underneath the hood, and underneath that clip is a dark, empty hole. Lifting a lone clawed finger, it points at Kairi. Red eyes appear beneath the mask, rooting the Princess of Heart to the spot. Unable to move, a single word falls from her lips.

"Hollow."


	4. Chapter 4

Even though Sora can't visibly make out his friends on land, something within alerts him to danger. He turns around but doesn't find any Heartless popping out of portals. As he nears, he makes out Riku shouting at Kairi, and Kairi floating in the air but paralyzed, staring at a point in front of her. Sora tries to follow her line of sight but sees nothing.

The cliffside explodes, emitting a huge dust cloud. A gigantic chunk of land where Riku used to stand sloughs off and tumbles into the ocean. Blue electricity fizzes through the dust cloud, illuminating two shadows within. Sora doubles his speed, all senses on alert. "Riku? Kairi! Where are you—"

Invisible claws rake along his side, tearing through his borrowed shirt and recently healed flesh. The wind Sora's riding on gives way, cushioning against the blow at the price of falling uncontrollably. The moment he regains control, Sora darts away, searching for the source. There doesn't seem to be anything around him at all, except for the dust cloud still hovering around the cliff top. _Oblivion_ twitches, notifying Sora of enemy presence. He circles around, trying to avoid whatever is threatening his friends in front of the cliff.

Then he spots them: Riku sprinting towards the Gummi Ship, an unconscious Kairi slung over his shoulder. "What happened?" Sora shouts, swooping towards them.

"To your right!" Riku yells, and Sora dodges left and down. A gust of wind whooshes over him, and Sora sees a slight disturbance in the air, like a heat wave. Agrabah may have been sizzling hot, but Neverland's weather is always a windy springtime climate. _The monsters are here as well._

With one hand holding Kairi in place, Riku directs his Keyblade at Sora and shouts, "Gravity!" A purple flash detonates behind Sora, and, whirling around, he notices a disturbance of air around the stationary spell. Beneath him, Riku yells, "Dammit, Sora, can't you see it? The phantom ghost thing!"

Phantom ghost? Ghost. Phantom… there have been a lot of Phantom and Ghost Heartless that Sora has fought over the years. A Phantom in Neverland? It couldn't be the boss he defeated next to a gigantic clock tower, far away from this locale); besides, this is a new type of enemy, not a previously defeated Heartless. Still, it would be wise to heed Kairi's words; Sora retreats, searching his voluminous pockets for a keychain with magical properties. He pulls out the first one that resonates with his searching fingertips and snaps it onto the hilt of his Keyblade.

_Bond of Flame_ materializes, shaping itself into the likeness of two fiery chakrams. For a moment, the wind tugs at his short blond spikes and black and white clothes, and he feels an intense connection to the keychain dangling off the weapon he holds in both hands. Then the moment has passed and Sora recognizes the keychain given to him by Organization XIII's Axel, right before the assassin with the element of fire dissolved into black dust.

The sudden boost in magical firepower reveals the Phantom to Sora. Its tattered black cloak ripples in the wind; Wicked claws curl from its searching hands. There does not appear to be a body beneath its cape. This time around, it has different characteristics: it doesn't have a glowing sphere indicating its current weakness; it has a hole in its chest; and red eyes glow from behind a blank white mask partially obscured by its dark hood.

_Red eyes, _Sora notes. _Bond of Flame_ rises to point at the monster's face and begins to glow with power. Heat shimmers along the perimeter of the handguard and the circular teeth of the Keyblade, and all that's left is for Sora to shout, "Firaga!"

A gigantic fireball swells from the chakram composing the teeth of the Keyblade. It wobbles unstably there, and, just as it's about to encroach on the handguard, the fireball explodes outwards and engulfs the Phantom in a wide beam of flame.

Sora looks down towards the Gummi Ship again. Riku with Kairi disappears into it; a moment later, Riku comes out alone, _The Way to Dawn_ ready. "Sora! Bring him down here!"

"Get up here!" Sora yells back as the super-charged fire blast dissipates into tongues of flame. The entire Phantom is on fire now, but Sora's gaze is drawn to its mask again, which is as pristine as it was before Sora's attack. Not even a crack from the heat. Before the Phantom can react, Sora is up within the monster's defenses. Imitating Riku's strike in Agrabah, Sora slices vertically across the mask… and bounces off harmlessly. The Phantom's eerie golden eyes glint maliciously and Sora momentarily blacks out.

Seconds later, he comes to, fifty feet away with blood spilling into the air from his shoulder, showering crimson drops around Riku. "Sora!" he bellows, waving his Keyblade. "I can't fly!"

"Yes you can!" Sora yells back, casting Cura over himself to stem the bleeding. Despite having traveled to many worlds, his own supportive magic pales in comparison to Kairi's in terms of comfort and effectiveness.

"This is not the time to argue, dammit," Riku shouts. "Just—"

Sora lands next to him, using Cura to heal the both of them. Riku readies himself, but the Phantom doesn't follow; it remains above them, its skeletal hands outstretched. Energy begins to build up in the space between its bony fingers.

Sora reacts faster than Riku does, yanking him out of the way by his silvery long hair. They both hit the ground rolling as the cackling ball of energy impacts five feet away, and then Riku is suddenly falling, bouncing off rocks in an uncontrollable tumble off the cliff. Arms encircle his shoulders and drag him away from the rocky side, and Riku finds himself suspended in midair, barely clutching onto _The Way to Dawn_ even as Sora's _Bond of Flame _clatters on the boulders below.

"Think you can fly now?" Sora laughs grimly as the two stagger through the air drunkenly.

Riku peeks at the waves below. The open black expanse of sea looks deceptively far beneath him. "If you drop me, I will—"

Behind them, the Phantom releases another burst of energy; Riku recalls a similar projectile knocking their Gummi Ship out of orbit into Neverland's atmosphere as it speeds towards them. Sora lurches to the side to dodge it clumsily. Riku's legs swing like lead weights, useless in this situation. They're sitting ducks just begging to be shot at. Riku would chuckle at their awkward positioning if they weren't able to be vaporized any second now.

"Riku," Sora says warningly. "You're dead weight."

"I know."

"I can't fight it with you in my arms."

"I know!"

"And I don't feel like carrying you closer to it so you can try to whack at it over my head."

"Only you would think of such a stupid plan."

"Hey! Oh yeah, by the way, we're going to die if we keep bumbling around like this." Sora drops twenty feet or so to avoid another energy ball, and when he pulls back up, Riku slips even more.

"Flying?" Riku protests. "It's easy enough for you; you're a sap who's still naïve enough to believe—"

The next energy ball hits them square on, blasting both apart. Riku cartwheels uncontrollably; white sky blurs with midnight blue ocean until, with a flash of golden light, the very air around him turns syrupy and his ungraceful descent slows considerably.

"You can do it," Sora's voice echoes around him. "If you can't accept this world's flying, at least believe in me."

Riku looks around; golden dust glitters around him, but Sora is nowhere to be seen. He must have somehow attached a message and the golden dust to the Slow spell he cast on Riku. His time is running out; any moment, Sora's spell will cease and Riku will continue his death plunge into the ocean, without any land mass nearby. No, he's got to fly now.

The feeling of moving through honey vanishes, but Riku is still hovering in midair. When he starts forward, he doesn't lose height either. Flying: a constant buffering force of air beneath him, suspending him in place. Before he can consider it too long, however, a crash draws his attention: the Phantom has just scratched the Gummi Ship, sprinkling Gummi blocks across the tiny island they've parked on.

_It's after Kairi,_ Riku thinks, racing forward with the confidence that he can fly. Before anymore damage can be done, though, thunder arcs from Sora's Keyblade and drives the Phantom back towards Riku.

"Use Blizzard!" Sora shouts. "Aim for the mask!"

The Phantom whirls around in time for a chunk of ice to strike it in the face. Needles of frozen water burst outwards in a spiky ice bomb, freezing it in place. Sora and Riku descend on the Phantom with the fury of their Keyblades, landing a flurry of blows. A single crack appears on the mask.

The two fly back before the Phantom can retaliate, and Sora takes the time to congratulate Riku. "You're flying!"

Riku smirks. "I've always been twice as good as you are in everything."

"Oh yeah?"

When the Phantom turns on them with burning red eyes and begins to build another ball of energy between its hands, Sora hits back with another powerful blast of fire. Then it tries to corner Riku, and its eyes are the color of cold steel.

Riku fires off another Blizzard; however, the Phantom merely bats it aside, shattering it instantly. "Is the color of its eyes related in any way to how you're supposed to attack it?" he questions Sora.

Sora touches his armband, flying around to face the Phantom's mask. Activating the materia he received from Yuffie, he roars, "Blizzaga!"

Spears of ice jut out from every surface on the Phantom, crystallizing in its cloak and solidifying it. Catching on, Riku raises his Keyblade to the sky, and together, the two boys shout, "Thunder!"

Twin lightning bolts curve from their Keyblades to strike the monster on the head. Immediately, both boys race forward and attack the mask, knocking off chunks of ice and cracking the mask even more. By the time both are finished, the Phantom's mask is a network of cracks.

A gigantic blast of energy surges from the monster, knocking both Sora and Riku aside like flies. By the time Riku has recovered, the Phantom has pushed past their meager line of defense and batted the Gummi Ship onto its side. Glass shatters, metal crunches, a ray gun goes off. Kairi screams, and, in response, both Sora and Riku bellow and charge.

"Thundara!" Kairi shrieks.

White hot lightning crackles around the Gummi Ship, dealing even more damage to their vehicle of transportation. The Phantom screeches and withdraws, facing Sora. _Bond of Flame_ shimmers with heat and releases another boosted Firaga, knocking the cracked mask around to face Riku.

"Blizzard!"

A tiny ball of ice pops out of the tip of _The Way to Dawn_ and inches over to the Phantom slowly. Before the monster can recover the knockout punch dealt by Sora's Firaga, Riku's weak spell makes contact.

Riku and Sora make eye contact and nod. Sora darts in first, cutting the mask diagonally; then Riku, slicing penpendicular to Sora's gash. Both finish the Aerial Dive by leaping above the Phantom, Keyblades raised above their heads for maximum power. A flicker of movement and Kairi is suddenly between them, her Keyblade raised in a similar fashion. Together, _The Way to Dawn, Destiny's Embrace, _and _Bond of Flame_ streak downwards and cleave into the monster, slicing the hood and the mask in two, severing the clip holding the cloak together, and cutting all the way down to the hole in its chest.

The cloak unravels, falling away from empty space. From their positions hovering above the battered Gummi Ship, the three friends watch as the two halves of the mask crumble and the cloak begins to dissolve into sparkling blue particles.

"Spirit particles," Riku remembers. "We've got to—"

Kairi pulls a small glass jar from a zippered pocket and flies forward. Calmly, she collects a piece of black cloth and a mass of spirit particles into the jar, then screws it shut and flies back over. As she nears, Sora notices a large, recently healed cut beneath her knee. "Are you doing alright?" He asks anxiously. "Rolling around in the Gummi Ship, how—"

Kairi winces. "That actually woke me up," she confesses, rubbing a spot on her head. "I hit my knee really hard and a weapon went off close to my head, but that's about all that happened to me. The exit door doesn't seal properly anymore, but that's what allowed me to crawl outside."

"How'd you know to hit it with Thundara when its eyes were yellow?" Riku asks. "It took me a while to figure it out, but you were beaten up, thrown around, and barely crawled out from the smoking wreck before you caught on."

Kairi smiles coyly. "Woman's intuition."

Sora crosses his arms, pouting. "That's not a real answer."

Riku jerks his head over to their smoking Gummi Ship. One wing is bent horribly; the windshield is spiderwebbed with cracks; the body is scratched, dented, and falling apart in some places; the engines sputter feebly; the weapons are dysfunctional; its landing struts are mangled; and something highly volatile is leaking somewhere. "Well, I have a question for you: how are we going to get off this world in that thing?"


	5. Chapter 5

"What the fuck did you do to my beautiful ship?" Cid roars as Sora lowers their barely functional Gummi Ship in the large open air marketplace in the district next to Merlin's house. Yuffie, Aerith, and Leon hang back as Cid races forward, biting clean through his toothpick on the way over. Sora flips the emergency bailout lever, which ejects the windshield so they can exit the space vehicle; it shatters at the force, exploding outwards in a rain of reinforced glass. Cid's jaw drops completely as the tinkling dies away, and the other half of the severed toothpick falls out.

"Couldn't we just open the door?" Kairi calls from the back. "A small Fire spell would have melted the ice around the seal."

Sora gives a jaunty little wave towards Yuffie and the others, then turns to Riku. "You go left, I'll go right. Avoid Cid at all costs, and hide behind Aerith."

Riku ignores him, hopping out of the co-pilot's seat. Glass crunches beneath his feet as he strolls towards Cid. "Sorry, Cid," he apologizes sincerely. "We had a pretty rough fight. The monster went after Kairi in the Gummi Ship."

Cid rubs the back of his neck, halfway between furious and sympathetic. In that moment of hesitation, though, a rocket finally falls free of its cradle and detonates spectacularly. Riku and Cid are blown halfway across the marketplace, crashing into wooden stalls, and the Gummi Ship itself is flipped over and set on fire. Yuffie and Leon races towards the wreckage, but a chill settles over the square, followed by a crystallizing _chink_ as minute ice crystals form on every available surface, putting the fires out.

Kairi and Sora leap out of the now-blasted open door and join Riku's side. Kairi pulls the two sample jars out of her pocket and holds them out to Cid, sprawled in a pile of broken crates. "We've got your samples."

* * *

><p>With the tip of his wand, Merlin pulls out a singular blue particle out of each jar and places them on their own small glass slides, which he then inserts into Ansem's computer. Immediately, data analysis begin to scroll across all eight screens.<p>

Tron's formal yet friendly voice emits from the speakers. "As the Gummi Ship's analysis reported, there is no previous data collected that matches the outputs of these samples. It is a completely new species, but still related to the Heartless and the Nobodies. Allow me five minutes to complete my full evaluation."

Everybody sits in silence for about a minute until Sora whispers to Kairi, "Donald and Goofy and I have been beamed inside the computer. It's a whole different world in there, it's crazy!"

Kairi looks at him in wonder. "The computer is its own world?"

Sora nods and is about to launch into a full description of all his adventures when Cid gives him the stink eye. Sora shuts up and hides behind Kairi. "Sheesh," he mutters to himself. "It's not like Tron's saying anything."

"I heard that," Tron intones. "Nevertheless, feel free to talk amongst yourselves; you will not disturb my analysis, not unless you tickle me with the keyboard."

Riku glares at Sora, preventing him from doing just that. Leon closes his eyes and shakes his head ever so slightly.

"Hey Beardy," Yuffie pipes up. "What are the blue glowy thingies again?"

Merlin's mustache crackles, but he contains whatever retort he had in store. "Spirit particles. They aren't a phenomenon observed in the worlds you've explored, Sora?"

Sora cocks his head as he tries to remember. "No, no weird firefly glitter."

Merlin twitches. "Due to the absence of _spirit particles_ observed in other locales, I believe this wonder to be the phenomenon of a single world."

Riku interrupts, "But you told us before that everybody has a spirit."

"Yes, my boy, that is correct; every living thing has spirit which provides it life and possibly the ability to channel magic. However, this spirit world possibly has spirit particles deeply integrated into the world's mechanisms. It is possible that the spirit particles are utilized in the world's life and death cycles even more so than ours, or even that spiritual beings composed of spirit particles exist alongside the living. This is all speculation, but in the latter case, only living beings with higher spiritual energies may be able to see the spiritual beings; the fact that Kairi was able to see the monster while Sora was not supports this hypothesis."

"I don't understand," Kairi says slowly.

"You, young lady, are adept at magic, no?"

"Not as much as—"

"Sure she is," Sora supports eagerly. "It's only been three months and she's already mastered Curaga!"

Kairi bops him on the head. "It's only because you keep running into situations without your head screwed on straight."

"Initial analysis complete," Tron speaks. "The sample size consists of particles from just two individuals and can only be used in correlation and not as representation of the whole population. These are the preliminary results: both of the particles seem to vibrate at a certain resonance, inversely proportional to the distance from the source. This source is not the spirit from which it came, but the world from where the spirit itself came."

"So the monsters come from a specific world," Cid echoes.

Tron answers, "Yes. In addition, it is quite possible that these spirits are the overflow of a singular world specialized for the spirits' existence. The electromagnetic readings seem to indicate that the spirit was ejected from that specialized world, whereupon it traveled through the Corridors of Darkness to access other worlds. The original spirits' world must have reached its maximum carrying capacitance and is now spilling its monsters out into all the worlds."

"So this isn't something that already is in all the worlds," Sora asks. "It's coming from just one world?"

"Correct."

"That doesn't make sense," Kairi interjects. "If it comes from another world, why did the one in Agrabah look like Jasmine's grandfather? That's pretty specific to Agrabah."

"But the Phantom in Neverland wasn't specific to the world," Sora counters. "It was just a Heartless that latched onto the world. I fought and defeated it too."

"The spirit particles that the spirits are made of are from another world," Cid states. "That's solid fact from Tron. Maybe the spirit took on the form of somebody close to the Princess to gain access to her? And the Neverland Phantom…"

"…was after Kairi," Riku finishes. "Kairi's never seen the Phantom before."

"Well, we can tentatively conclude one thing," Aerith says softly. "Princess Jasmine, and then Kairi… these spirits seem to seek out Princesses of Heart."

"Then it's obvious what we've got to do next," Sora states decisively, his brow furrowed in worry. "If the spirits are spilling out of their world because there's too many of them there, then we've got to go to that world and bring their numbers down. I could even seal the world's Keyhole and lock all the pathways in and out, preventing more spirits from exiting."

"One problem," Kairi cuts in. "We don't know where the world is."

"Exactly," Tron confirms. "The particle resonance of the samples gives me a distance, but in which direction we're not too sure. In order to triangulate the source, other samples from other spirits would have to be collected from other worlds."

"Alright, change of plans!" Sora chirps, his mood change so quick that Kairi gets whiplash. "We go wipe out other spirits popping up in the other worlds and collect their blue glowy things, then triangulate-whatever-that-means the blue glowy things to get the coordinates of the world, and _then_ we go and kick spiritual monster butt in the spiritual monster world!"

"Crude, but accurate," Merlin agrees. "But the fatal flaw in your plan: can you see the spirits?"

Sora's face falls yet again. "Uh… not really."

"Wait, Merlin said that people with more spirit energy can see spirits, right?" Kairi speaks up. "You just have to increase your MP. Equip a keychain with magical properties." She turns to Merlin. "Will that work?"

It's a while before Merlin answers. "We have many questions now," he finally articulates. "Many questions, and hardly any answers. I believe that more data should be collected before an official and final decision is made. Nevertheless, this is a matter of utmost urgency which must be dealt with quickly. The worlds have just been restored to a reasonable balance between darkness and light; that equilibrium is still unstable and the worlds still vulnerable. This influx of spirits should be dealt with immediately, or else we may have another infestation of the worlds again."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I tried to write the Bleach side of things, I really tried - but I can't get the inspiration for it. I do have a chapter on what's happening in the Bleach-verse, but the Kingdom Hearts events come to me much more rapidly and I'm more inspired to write those. So this has become a fusion fic - mainly Kingdom Hearts with Bleach elements. I'll get around to throwing Ichigo and Uryu and Rukia into the mix soon enough... but not now.**

* * *

><p>Yuffie falls onto her rear as Sora forces her and her gigantic shuriken to the earth with his Keyblade. "Owie," she whines, flopping over onto her back. "I'm beat. Good thing Squall tired me down before this sparring match, kiddo, or you'd be flopped over on your back whining like a little baby. Hey!" she shouts at Sora's retreating back. "Did you hear me? This is not me at full stren—"<p>

"Give it a rest, Yuffie," Leon says, offering her a hand. "And it's Leon."

Yuffie deigns his offer at help, instead choosing to somersault backwards into a crouching position. "The hell, Squall, you're supposed to back me up!"

A couple hundred feet away, Sora plops next to Kairi and Riku, taking a chug of Potion. He steals a glance at Kairi, who's staring at her shoes. "How's your training going?" he asks conversationally.

Kairi jumps, startled. "Oh… Yuffie takes me places, actually," she smiles softly. "We go into the city and through the castle gardens. She doesn't say anything… anything meaningful, at least… but I'm starting to remember things."

Sora leans forward in interest. "Remember? What sort of memories?"

Kairi bites her lip. "Bits and pieces. I… I've been here before." She looks troubled, so Riku places a restraining hand on Sora's arm before he can ask anymore, and Kairi sinks into thought again.

Riku calmly slices the air with his Keyblade, knocking a small throwing star out of the air. "Still won't give up?" he calls.

Yuffie leaps almost twenty feet into the air, soaring across the sparring field to land six feet away. She shadow-boxes at invisible enemies from where she is. "I can still take you on… with the power of LOVE. The two of you against the two—"

"Leave me out of this," Leon says simply, slinging his gunblade over one shoulder and turning to walk away.

Yuffie's pupils expand comically. "Squall! I just screamed LOVE for the world to hear. The world is listening! There is no way you can—"

"Shuddup, kiddo," growls the communication device on Yuffie's pouched belt. "Listen up: we've got a lead on this spirit case."

Sora leaps to his feet. "Really? Where to next?"

There is some shuffling, followed by Merlin's voice. "Eh, what is this? Do you wish for me to—hello? Hello? How do I—"

"Merlin!" Sora greets. "You're using technology?"

"Eh? Is that Sora's voice? Truly, Cid, I would prefer that we meet here for a face-to-face conversation. Talking to a piece of synthetic material is hardly personal and not worthy of conveying such vital information."

"It's a fifteen minute jog over to your place, Beardy," Yuffie groans. "And I'm dead. Not that Sora heard me say that."

Riku cuts through her babbling. "You said you had a lead."

"Ah, yes. Forgive me for struggling with artificial contraptions—"

"Forgiven," Cid growls in the background.

"Excuse me?"

Leon speaks tersely. "Merlin."

"Right. I believe your next destination would best be Halloween Town."

"Halloween Town?" Riku asks. "Is that the founder's name?"

"It is the manifestation of a world's tradition," Merlin explains. "Simply put, a festival of another world that has gained so much momentum that it becomes its own world, inhabited by residents willing to represent that culture. Halloween Town is a world that celebrates the darker side of spirits."

"Halloween Towners aren't spirits!" Sora protests. "At least, not like the two monsters we've encountered. They're just beings from a different culture."

"Nevertheless, Halloween Town is founded off a tradition dealing with the afterlife," Merlin responds. "It would probably be the best bet if you are looking for answers concerning souls."

"How long until Cid's got the Gummi Ship ready?" Sora questions.

Any reply from Merlin is drowned out by a long string of expletives from Cid, so Riku adds, "We've got the munny to compensate you for—"

Cid yelps suddenly and then falls quiet. Aerith's soft voice carries over the speaker. "What Cid means to say is to not go rushing into situations where you're going to get yourself as beat up as the Gummi Ship. He's worked all night and day for the past week to restore his spacecraft."

"Damn straight, and I'll—"

"Shush," Aerith says gently but firmly, and Cid backs down obediently. "Keep yourself safe, alright, Sora? And you too, Kairi. Watch Sora, and come back to us."

Kairi jumps at Aerith's last request. Her eyes widen in recognition, grasping at faint memories. "R-r-right," she stutters. "I'll… come back. Aerith."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Riku pulls at his modified jacket suspiciously. "What did the Fairy Godmother need our clothes for?"

"Magical upgrades, she said," Kairi replies. She's more focused after leaving Radiant Garden, and she peers over Riku's shoulder at the copilot's dashboard. "That's the button I hit for windshield wipers!"

Riku bats her hand away. "That's the one that dislodged the rockets, except you didn't hold it down and it didn't eject properly."

"And then it fell out in the marketplace and exploded," Kairi concludes.

"Actually," Sora interrupts, "Having those clothes modified allows us to visit more worlds. I've only taken us to worlds where the people won't be incredibly suspicious of us wearing our normal clothes, like Agrabah or Wonderland; but there are some worlds where we have to blend in just to be accepted and understood."

Riku shrugs. "People tend to avoid you when you're walking around in an Organization coat."

"Anyways, Halloween Town is one of those worlds… where you've got to look horrible, or nobody will talk to you."

Kairi tousles Sora's hair. "Then that won't be a problem for you."

"Hey!" Sora blushes as he extricates Kairi's hand from his spiky hair. "I already know what I look like in Halloween Town. I just can't wait to see what terrible, scary costume that the Fairy Grandmother's magic will cook up for you."

_6 hours later_

"W-w-whoa," Sora stutters. "You… you look…"

"Absolutely horrifying!" Jack Skellington congratulates brightly. "Sora, when you told me that you were bringing along friends, I never expected you to keep such ghastly company!"

Kairi eyes her black-and-white thigh-high stockings and pink Gothic Lolita style dress with black frills. Her bangs hang low over her eyes, and she inspects herself through the dark strands of hair that won't stop falling in front of her face. "I'll take that as a compliment," she grins, then teases, "Riku, I've never seen you more hideous than you are now!"

Riku remains silent, though his cheeks burn as red as his horns while he tries to press his black bat wings as close to his backside as possible. His tail wiggles restlessly from its position wrapped around his waist.

"Jack," Sora says hurriedly, tearing his eyes off Kairi, "Have you seen any strange monsters lately? I mean, monsters that aren't friendly… erm, they don't talk and they attack other people—"

"This is Halloween Town!" Jack laughs gleefully as the group strolls towards the Guillotine Gate leading into the Town Square. "If we didn't have creepers in masks hiding behind the bushes to ambush the denizens of this town with harmless chainsaws, the town wouldn't live up to its name!"

"Isn't that harmful?" Kairi asks, and, as if to emphasize her point, a nearby gutter belches out a rolling purple cloud of poison that transforms a nearby dandelion into a wrinkled, black stick. "Like, enough to kill people."

Sora pulls his companions back as they approach the gate. "Watch out," he whispers. "It's called the Guillotine Gate for a reason."

Jack continues to walk and talk, even when the sharp blade senses his presence and knocks his skull clean off his stick-like body. Casually, his body picks up the small, silent skull and screws it back onto its severed vertebral spine, whereupon Jack continues his welcoming monologue. "In fact, the mayor hasn't come out of his house for almost three weeks! I'll bet he's really coming up with something spectacularly atrocious this year. It will be the best Halloween ever, one to remember for generations to come!"

As the Guillotine Gate resets itself, Sora squeezes past and joins Jack's side. "What did you say about the mayor?"

Jack turns around to face Sora. "Oh, most of the town has been staying inside over the past few weeks, I believe," he says happily. "They must be preparing for next year's festivities! Halloween is only ten months away, after all!"

Riku grabs Kairi around the waist and supernaturally shoots into the Town Square, zooming so fast that his edges blur momentarily. "You haven't seen the town's citizens in past weeks? Nobody at all? And you assume they're all just spending their time indoors? Why can't they prepare for Halloween outside?"

Jack adopts a thoughtful pose next to the acid slime fountain. Green ooze splashes merrily out of the fountain spout; some drops spill onto Jack's tweed coat, sizzling little holes into his coattails. "Oh dear," he says with a little sadness. "I may have to ask of Sally's services again."

Sora tilts his head. "But Jack, I thought Sally moved into your house."

He nods eagerly. "She did! And she still does! I just haven't seen her for nine days and eleven hours. She must also be collaborating for next year's Halloween festival."

Riku shares a wary glance with Sora. "How long ago did everybody start… working on their projects?"

"I believe the mayor announced his project first, though I didn't get the memo. Or perhaps I forgot; my head doesn't hold a lot of information," he jokes, knocking on his hollow skull. "He first shut himself up in his house three weeks ago, and the neighbors started about a week afterwards. There were a lot of convincing screams and screeches that week; I almost got a bit worried myself. But then, Sally went out to check."

"But she hasn't come back!" Kairi protests frantically. "Doesn't that worry you?"

"She's alright," he says confidently, pulling something out of his coat pocket. "See? Her finger is still twitching."

All three friends recoil. "Oh," Kairi says faintly. "Um."

"Her stitching came loose again?" Sora guesses.

"Yes, unfortunately," Jack replies. "On her right hand, too, and she has trouble sewing properly with just her left hand. I offered, but we both know I'm no good at such fine work, so she was headed over to Dr. Finklestein's lab after she visited some friends downtown first. I found this finger next to the Guillotine Gate; I suppose she was a little too slow and didn't notice."

"But if she's working on a special project, wouldn't she notice a finger off her right hand is missing and come back for it?" Riku persists.

Jack's perpetually cheerful expression falls slightly, and Sora cuts in. "Hey, cheer up, Jack! I'm sure Sally is fine; after all, if her finger is still moving, Sally must want to do something with her right hand."

Kairi throws up a little in her mouth. Riku still looks skeptical, proposing, "Well, why don't we check up on the mayor? I know everybody's project is supposed to be a surprise, but Sora tells me you're the Pumpkin King, right? Somebody has got to keep you in the loop."

"That's right!" Jack agrees heartily. "I am the Pumpkin King, the main coordinator and the main attraction of the Halloween Festival! I should at least ask the mayor if I can do anything to help." He begins leading them towards a large flight of stone steps into a large crypt. "Why, four years ago, I spent weeks on end cooped up alone in my house, planning to relieve Sandy Claws of his Christmas activities!" Jack winces. "That… did not go as well as I'd hoped, unfortunately. It just goes to show you that working alone, even if it is to surprise your friends with a truly dreadful gift, is not always a very good idea!"

The crypt doors swing open, admitting the group to a residential area of the town. The houses here, though well-to-do, are dark and shut up and have an air of abandonment around them. Kairi presses tighter against Sora as Riku keeps up with Jack's spindly long legs. Tentatively, Sora curls an arm around her shoulders, and Kairi relaxes into him slightly. "Nobody's lived here for a while," she whispers.

"I know," Sora agrees, tightening his arm around her. His tone is laced with cautious gravity, a quality so rare in Sora that it sets Kairi on edge. "We've got to stay on our toes."

"Right."

Sora releases her and quickens his pace to catch up to Riku and Jack, who are already well ahead. Together, the four climb the incline to the top of the hill, where a skinny house sits. Of all the houses on the block, this residence exhibits evidence of habitation; it also holds a charged, negative air that causes Kairi to flinch. A voice inside her head urges her not to proceed, to stay back and escape from the situation. _Danger. Something big and dangerous is here._

Kairi glances over at Riku, who has stiffened visibly as well. Sora looks between the two of them in confusion. "Kairi," he says slowly. "You're… glowing."

Kairi glances down at her own body. No light leaks from underneath her frilly lacy pink dress, but for a second, she views the world through grey eyes and white bangs and the urge to flee is stronger than ever. Then she closes her eyes and shakes her head to clear her mind, and when she straightens up again, the echo of her resurfacing Nobody has died away and she is just Kairi again.

Sora's hand is holding hers, and she focuses on his glove. "Are you alright?" he asks in concern. His other hand cradles his head, as if soothing a sensitive headache. "This place is pretty creepy. We don't have to follow Jack—"

"I'm fine," she assures him in a low voice. "I'm just a little queasy. Nothing I can't handle."

"Funny," Jack calls from the mayor's front door. "The door handle is broken."

"Like it won't open?" Riku questions as he mounts the front stairs. Sora and Kairi run to catch up.

"No, the door's already open," Jack responds merrily. "The door handle itself has been destroyed. This must be some delightfully shocking prank set up by—"

The door suddenly swings open; something wraps around Jack's wrist and yanks him into the darkness of the mayor's house. A second later, Jack screams in terror and the ground around Sora's and Kairi's feet explodes.


	7. Chapter 7

Sora grips Kairi's hand tightly as the two fly in the air. It takes a moment for Sora to orient himself, but as soon as he does, he pulls Kairi into his arms and lands on his feet. When Kairi finds her feet, he steps in front of her, _Bond of Flame_ held in his grip.

The monsters pulling themselves out of hidden tombstones may have once been the town's residents, but now are indistinguishable by the unmoving, white masks covering their faces and the dark holes through their chests. A mummy, an old woman with grizzled hair and one eyeball bouncing around on her mask, and a small child wearing a simple grey sleeping gown pick themselves up from their resting places; at the same time, two Hover Ghosts and an ice-cube-enclosed Snowy Crystal appear behind the transformed citizens.

Sora reacts only when the Heartless appear, and Kairi touches his arm lightly. "You don't see them?"

Sora's shoulder twitches at her words. "There are… they're here too?" He squints, but doesn't appear to see anything. "Stay close behind me," he instructs.

"You're not going to do something stupid, are you?"

"We've got to get to Jack first. We can deal with the spirits later." At this, he runs forward, Kairi following close behind.

"In front of you!" Kairi yells, and Sora forklifts the child spirit into the air. Kairi puts on a burst of speed, soaring between the mummy and the hag spirits. The child spirit lands with a small thud behind her, but the spirit itself makes no noise.

"Get on my back!" Sora commands, and though Kairi's eyebrows rise apprehensively, she doesn't hesitate to leap and latch onto his moving backside.

"I think this counts as stupid!" she shouts as Sora points his Keyblade straight forward, a cone of energy gathering around the tines. One of the Ghosts rears back, apparently preparing to fire something, and Kairi raises her body, grabs onto Sora's long spikes with one hand for support, and launches a small Fire out of the palm of her other hand. It collides with the Ghost's chest and knocks it off balance so that, when it fires its claws, the hands-on-strings smack into the ice cube Heartless.

Sora leans forward to compensate for Kairi's shift in balance, but when his Keyblade has finished charging, he shouts, "Hold on tight!" Kairi drops to hug his neck as Sora's Keyblade jerks forward, plowing through the Heartless in his way. Even when he's cleared the enemies, he continues to race forward with Kairi still clinging onto his back, jumping up the front stairs of the mayor's house. Jack's scream has fallen silent by now, yet Riku is still waiting at the top of the stairs. "Cover me," he yells as they near, and he runs into the house.

Kairi detaches from Sora's back as they duck into the house. She covers her Keyblade in a small coating of Light to illuminate the dwelling's interior. Everything has been trashed beyond repair; huge gouges are carved into the walls; windows are shattered; a few walls are collapsed, completely broken through; and shredded clothing litters the floor.

"Riku, Sora!"

"I know," Sora says hurriedly. "We need more light in here." He points his Keyblade at the ceiling, and energy gathers at the tip.

Kairi grabs the shaft of his weapon and directs it at the floor. "Don't!" she hisses. "This house is built vertically; if you knock out any more supports, you'll bring the entire house down on top of us."

"But we need to find out where Jack is, now," Sora insists.

Riku moves further into the dark house. _Way to Dawn_ is held in both hands defensively, securely across his torso instead of his usual, aggressive, over-the-head grip. Something on the upper levels of this house reeks of darkness, but somehow it's able to access the ground floor. It isn't until Riku steps on a thick, rubbery cord that he realizes the danger they're in.

"Get out of here NOW!"

The entire house implodes the next second, and Kairi barely manages to save herself through an instinctively cast Reflega spell that envelops her in hexagonal tiles. Chunks of plaster and black cables whip across the other side of the barrier, until Kairi realizes that cables are actively attempting to penetrate her shielded bubble. One tentacle tries to jab between the tiles, causing each to spray outward in a shower of light shards. The tentacles recoil for a split second, allowing Kairi to sprint for the open doorway. Feelers loop around her feet, trying to trip her up; they fall on her back and shoulders, like sandpaper clinging to her skin; some reach across the doorway, but one slice of _Destiny's Embrace _has them wiggling in pieces on the floor as she breaks into the cool nighttime air.

"Sora?" she yells as she clatters down the stairs, as black lassos try to draw her back in. Once she reaches level ground, she turns around and jogs backwards slowly, calling, "Riku!"

An entire section of the house explodes, revealing a gigantic mass of black tentacles that squirm and shy away from the moonlight. In the midst of them, Sora dodges, twists, flips, and swings his Keyblade in a desperate attempt to break free, but even so, the tentacles begin to draw him back into the house.

Thinking quickly, Kairi casts Thundara while visualizing it differently in her mind. It takes a bit of effort, but, instead of raining down around her, the bolts of lightning streak out from her in a straight line and cut through the thick cables reeling Sora into the mayor's house. Significantly loosened, Sora recalls _Bond of Flame_ and slices through his bonds, dropping to the ground. He dodge-rolls out of the way, right before two tentacles shoot out of the ground where he just landed.

Too late, Kairi releases the same thing might happen to her. Three tentacles blast out of the ground at her feet; at the end of each tentacle is a small white bud which is harder and sharper than the rest of the tentacle, pummeling her thigh and slicing a small cut on her arm. Before they can whip around her body and tie her down, though, Kairi wraps her Keyblade in flame and spins around like Yuffie taught her, clearing a small open space.

"Where's Riku?" Kairi yells.

A huge beam of light extends from Sora's Keyblade, giving him an extra six feet of reach which he uses to hack up tentacles in front of him. "I lost him! We were grabbed by different tentacles." He aims for the house.

"You're going to bring down the entire house on him!" she warns.

He grins at her over his shoulder and smiles. "He can take it."

When Sora slices _Bond of Flame_ horizontally, a gigantic wave of Light sweeps into the house and dissipates. For a second, it appears as if the attack has had no effect; but then, with a groan, a clean cut materializes on the ground floor and the entire top half of the house slides off, toppling over. The tentacles writhe, emitting hissing, sizzling noises of pain as bright moonlight spills over all of them momentarily. Then a gigantic cloud of dust races over them and hides all, but Sora touches Aeroga on his armband and a small area clears around them. Kairi draws closer to Sora as the two wait for the next move.

A hundred white-tipped tentacles bombard their wind barrier, lashing around wildly as the unexpected wind pushes them off course. Still, many are able to penetrate in a spear-like manner, shooting straight for the two living beings. Sora grabs the keychain of _Bond of Flame_ and whirls his Keyblade in a wide circle. The two chakram-like extensions on the Keyblade spontaneously burst into flame, and Kairi huddles behind Sora as he maintains the spinning fan of flame that knocks the black spears aside.

Kairi faces the other side of the wind barrier, where other tentacles have gathered. They hover just outside of the circle of light created by Sora's spinning fire shield, so, going off the fire theme, Kairi rapidly fires multiple balls of Fire into the whirlwind.

Aeroga ends in a violent explosion that rockets everything it's engulfed into the air: the dust cloud, Kairi's tiny Fireballs, and all the tentacles trying to reach them. In the two seconds of time afforded by the conclusion of Sora's spell, Kairi and Sora catch a glimpse of their true enemy.

The house is completely demolished, reduced to a mound of rubble, but what used to be the mayor is still alive and well. Sora recognizes the pyramid-shaped figurehead from his brief visits to Halloween Town: the mayor had two different faces back then, one for happy occasions and the other for unhappy situations. However, the converted mayor now has both faces up front. His unhappy face is twisted into a feral snarl while his happy grin bears a bloodthirsty glee. Though the mask is unmoving, his body beneath is in constant motion: it dissolves into thousands of cords that split and tangle into a huge mass of writhing black.

A single, pale hand extends from the mass, still reaching for an invisible handhold. On the ground below, lying on a nest of severed tentacles, lies _Way to Dawn_.

* * *

><p>Intense green eyes slide over to his master's face. The subordinate's blank white face holds no expression whatsoever as he waits for his master's next move.<p>

* * *

><p>"RIK—"<p>

Sora grabs Kairi's arm, almost wrenching it out of her socket. Her call to Riku dissolves into a scream of pain, and she looks at Sora through watering eyes. His face is determined and firm, yet slightly apologetic. With incredible strength, he swings her around by her arm and flings her fifteen feet away from him. She hits the ground and tumbles out of the way, just as hundreds of Air-Tossed tentacles crash back on top of Sora.

Kairi rolls to her feet and races at the mass of tentacles, slashing wildly. "Sora! Dammit! You idiot! _That_ was stupid!" Her left shoulder explodes in pain as she moves her arm too far backwards on her third swing. Jumping backwards, she holds _Destiny's Embrace_ with both hands defensively and mumbles a Curaga spell. The tentacles are so busy converging on Sora that nothing disturbs her, but she can't think. Riku and Sora, buried in hundreds of tentacles, unable to move, suffocated or pierced until their bodies bleed dry—

Halloween Town is definitely not a place that inspires happy thoughts.

The familiar green flower opens above her, sprinkling golden points of light that seep into her skin. The pain in her shoulder fades away, but the despair hanging over her doesn't. She's whole and well and useless against a barrage of tentacles. She can hold her own against five Heartless, maybe ten—but she stands no chance against a hundred writhing snakes around her, each with its own deadly white tip. The tip of her Keyblade falls as her will to fight fades. Riku's hand has disappeared into the mass underneath the transformed mayor; Sora is wrapped in a tight bundle of black tentacles thirty feet to her left. No matter how many bolts of Thundara rain down from the full moon sky, no matter how many balls of Fire she launches, Kairi doesn't even appear to be making a dent in the tentacles surrounding Sora.

A winding black feeler loops around _Destiny's Embrace_ and rips it out of her hands. She tries to call it back, but nothing happens. She holds out her palms in front of her, firing off significantly weakened balls of Fire. Her vision flickers; her skin appears to shimmer. There's only one Hollow, but it has an overwhelming number of tentacles. They latch onto her legs and arms, preventing her from moving. She cups Fire in her hand and doesn't release it, allowing her to burn through whatever she touches, but that's too slow to prevent the masses that continue to coil around her, crushing her limbs. A couple tentacles break free from the rest and rise above her, their pointed white tips aimed at her.

Her scream comes out as a strangled hiss of air when three tips punch through her body, one pinning her right shoulder down and immobilizing it. She can feel blood seeping from her stomach into her dress, weighing it down, and something warm is pumping out of and running down her leg. Overwhelming heat rolls over her in waves; each surge jostles her vision and knocks her breathless. She can't breathe; even more black loops tighten around her body, tying her down as even more rise above her, ready to deal the killing blow.

Something is trying to force its way out of her throat. Blood, bile, her lunch, she doesn't know, but she can't hold it down. Tears stream from her eyes. Her heart hammers, attempting to tear itself out of her chest. Her limbs shake uncontrollably. The full moon above explodes into white light, dazzling her with its brilliance.

And then something… some_one_ leaps out from her body. Her body is solid and radiantly white, from her pale, glowing skin to her tiny white dress to her white blonde hair tossed over one shoulder. In one arm, she cradles a large sketchbook; with her other hand, she suspends several different colored pencils in midair.

Kairi's Nobody, Namine.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Holidays are finally here, so I had just a little time to write. There's a lot of action in here (and a little reference to Bleach!), and much more epicness is planned for the Nobodies... but some exposition is required first to explain how the hell Namine popped up when she did. Happy holidays, and please review!_


	8. Chapter 8

Sora waits until Kairi rolls out of range, ensuring that she's safe. The concern he shows for her costs him the chance to defend himself, and a hundred tentacles collapse on him and crush him into the ground. Everything goes dark, even though he's still conscious. He can feel the huge black trunks sliding over him like gigantic sea serpents, and he can't even move. All he can feel is the _Bond of Flame_ clutched in his fingers, still burning hotly yet unable to incinerate the mass above him. He can't see anything at all; everything is pitch dark.

He's falling. He's trapped in his head and he can't see anything or any reference points to let him know he's falling, but a pulling feeling in his gut tells him so. He tries to orient himself, looking up, then down. A tiny speck of light appears in his vision and grows larger, till it rockets past him on its way up: small blonde spikes, clear blue eyes, white jacket over a black zippered vest, checkered armband. The entity shoots him a patronizing smirk and continues on its way up, and Sora is swallowed by darkness again, looking up at the retreating light.

Sora snaps back to reality as four huge pillars of light descend from that tiny speck of light, slam into the ground around him, and dissolve his black bindings. Sora blinks once, then gasps as air suddenly fills his lungs. Oxygen reaches his starved muscles once again and inflate them with strength. He rolls over onto his side and coughs up blood. Something alive stirs in him; he looks down to see a black tentacle in his stomach, writhing as it dissolves into blue particles.

_Bond of Flame_ is still clutched in his hand, and Sora uses it to pull himself up. Around him, thin pillars of Light continue to rain down and dissolve all tentacles around him. He looks around for his savior, just as a flash of light to his right blinds him momentarily. When his eyes recover, Sora spots the slim, petite figure of a girl who is Kairi's height, clutching a large notepad and some small sticks. Something strikes a chord in his memory; he has met this girl before.

Sora assumes that the pale girl saved him with those pillars of light. There's nobody else around who could have summoned them. However, the moment he concludes that, a thought, a feeling, an insistent reminder niggles at his mind, prompting him on that speck of light in the midst of absolute darkness. He pushes it away; the other boy he saw in his head was just a figment of his imagination. The white-haired girl, on the other hand, is standing right in front of his eyes. Nobody else but this girl could have saved him.

He begins to run forward, and it's only then that Sora notices Kairi's broken body pinned to the floor behind the white-haired girl. Even more alarming, there appears to be a metal plate bolted to her chest, and the center of that plate is attached to a chain that runs through the grass up to an identical plate on the girl's chest. Again, he almost catches a brief memory, but it slides away again.

The girl stands between Kairi and about ten other tentacle spears, but there's no way she could repeat another powerful attack like those pillars of light. She looks so delicate and fragile; it's likely that she has only one devastating attack, and the rest of the time she's wide open and vulnerable. Sora has to return her favor; he's got protect her. He puts on a burst of speed as the first of the tentacles drop.

The girl tosses her sketchbook at the tentacles, and before Sora can mentally comment on the foolishness of the attack, huge sheets of paper spill from its covers and envelop the two women. The tentacle-spears collide with the paper shield and bounce off, creating the crackling sounds of small rocks hitting paper. The force of these blows is not diminished by the noise, however; Sora tries to dodge the deflected spears, but one grazes his left shoulder and sends him spinning uncontrollably in the air till he recovers.

As soon as the barrage of tentacle-spears has stopped, the paper shield retracts itself back into the large notebook, which drops back into the girl's hands. When she waves her right hand, two large colored pencils expand out of nowhere, moving themselves while drawing a picture of a green-and-red clock in midair.

Time stops.

Sora looks around in surprise. The writhing tentacles around him are frozen in their positions around him; when he turns around, a white tipped tentacle hovers, aimed to puncture his kidneys. The converted mayor is stock still, and the huge mass beneath him is likewise motionless. And somewhere in there…

Sora darts forward, but the girl's colored pencils get there first. Two tiny sticks zoom ahead of him, swelling into two 7-ft long colored poles. The yellow pencil slashes down the center of the frozen mass of tentacles, then pulls the edges of the incision open; the black pencil dives into the tear, creating a tunnel. Without hesitation, Sora leaps into the passageway created by the girl's strange weapons, runs until the tunnel ends, cuts and hacks his way further until he squeezes into a small chamber where a bloody Riku is suspended, pierced from all sides.

"Oh god… Riku… no…"

Sora feels the anger surging through his blade at the blood covering his best friend's body. Riku was frozen in time along with all of Halloween Town, and for that Sora is thankful; Riku doesn't appear as if he can take any more damage. Even as the tentacles snaking into Riku's body splinter and fall away under Sora's Keyblade, Riku still remains suspended in time where he is until Sora reaches up and pulls him down.

When he turns around, cradling the hovering Riku in his arms, a strange sight greets him: a flurry of pencils sketch a crude mural on thin air next to the tiny hole Sora had broken through. In the picture, the white-haired girl has her hand stretched out to them, an anxious expression on her face. Behind her, Kairi crouches on her hands and knees, and dark red blood mars her frilly pink skirt and streaks her black and white leggings. In front of the two girls and to the side, the red-and-green clock has its minute hand at 5, representing five time intervals till midnight. Only the barest of scenery surrounds them: the full moon in a slightly clouded black sky, a couple outlines of naked trees and abandoned houses, and a purplish-gray smear representing the cobblestoned ground. All the same, it is a perfect representation of what is outside. Sora readjusts Riku in his arms so one hand is free to reach through the drawing and grasp the girl's hand.

Before he knows it, the girl is hauling him into the outside world. The full moon is still frozen in a black sky; black tentacles remain motionless around him. As Sora lays Riku next to Kairi, he looks back at another drawing; this one shows the interior of the tentacle cave he just came out of. This girl just drew a window between two unconnected places and pulled him through it.

"Thank you," Sora says scratchily. His throat is choked and his voice is raw. "Thanks. For saving Kairi. And Riku, with the window." As he points at the strange drawing, it begins to separate into distinct clouds of color. Each cloud condenses back into a pencil, which then flies back into the girl.

The girl drops her gaze. "Did you already forget?"

Sora is taken aback, but he replies, "I might have forgotten what happened in the past, but what you've done today is enough to last a lifetime. Thanks for saving my friends, and for saving me with those pillars of light."

The girl smiles softly. "Your memories… I saved your friends, but it wasn't me that saved you."

Before Sora can question her, he is interrupted by three large green flowers that blossom upside down over his, Kairi's, and Riku's heads as Kairi points _Destiny's Embrace_ into the air. She holds her position until Riku's wounds seal; then she collapses next to Sora, holding onto him. "I… I thought I was going to lose you. Both of you. Again."

Sora hugs her briefly. "It's alright." As his arms encircle her shoulders, his forearm presses against cold metal. Shocked, Sora looks down at the metal plate bolted to Kairi's chest. It seems that Kairi has also just noticed because she doesn't smack Sora upside the head for apparently looking down her dress; both of their eyes follow the strange chain from Kairi's end to the girl's.

In the pregnant pause that follows, the girl's colored clock ticks down to 4. Four time intervals left. The girl observes Sora's and Kairi's aghast expressions and crouches down next to them. "I'm Namine. I used to be Kairi's Nobody."

A memory surfaces in Sora's mind. Standing on the tower at the highest point in the World That Never Was, ready to go home… and a transparent girl opened up Corridor of Darkness leading back to the Destiny Islands. But this girl crouching next to Kairi is solid and real, unlike the transparent ghost he remembers. "You… _used_ to be Kairi's Nobody?"

The girl clutches her end of the chain and sits down in front of Sora and Kairi. She looks at her blue sandals timidly as she begins to speak. "I… I always thought that Nobodies were destined to fade away. We were never meant to exist in the first place anyways; we Nobodies were just empty shells without hearts, a body with a soul that wanted to live so badly that we continued to exist. Still, without a heart, we were incomplete and would eventually disappear.

"But… but then, we met you. We Nobodies met our Somebodies. Our bodies and souls recombined with your pure hearts, and you became whole again. Your heart and your body were restored, and we didn't fade away. Instead, we just became your souls." Namine fingers the chain attached to her chest. "I am Kairi's spirit, connected to her by our Chain of Fate."

The clock ticks: three more time intervals left.

Sora gawks at Namine. "Uh, you're… her soul?"

"It's a very rare scenario," Namine adds. "Usually, the heart, body, and soul belong to just one individual. But you and Kairi, and me and him: we're different. Two special Nobodies—a memory witch and a Nobody with emotions—plus their special Somebodies—a Princess of Heart and the Chosen One—adds up to more than one individual can handle… so somehow, we continue to exist as a part of you."

Namine begins to draw on her sketchpad; something around Riku shatters, and he begins to breathe again, although slowly and peacefully. The passage of time allows for speeded healing, and Kairi holds her Keyblade over Riku's prone body. Sora manages to reel his jaw back in so he can ask a question. "But you're here now," he says slowly. "You're not just a part of Kairi; you're actually sitting next to her as your own self. How is that happening now?"

"I don't have all the answers," Namine says apologetically. "I'm an extension of Kairi, and Kairi happens to be very adept at magic and is aware of spiritual things. Up until recently, I've existed and lived as a part of Kairi; but your recent encounters with Hollows have brought me out."

Kairi looks over at Namine. "Hollows?"

"That's what they're called," Namine explains. "The monsters you encountered in Agrabah and Neverland are souls who linger behind after the body has died and turned malignant. Death by Heartless is unnatural; only the heart is separated, and the body and soul will continue to live on as a Nobody. Natural death comes when the body deteriorates from old age or too much damage; the heart goes to Kingdom Hearts, and the soul passes on into the afterlife. Where the afterlife is, I don't know." She pauses, considering her next words; the clock ticks again. Two time intervals are left.

"There are a very few number of souls who have something they want to accomplish so badly, they are able to remain on their world. These spirits can stay around for quite a while, roaming until they finally come to peace with their death and pass on. However, recently a catalyst has begun turning the spirits into Hollows. Before the catalyst, spirits and ghosts were able haunt an area for hundreds of years; Halloween Town is heavily populated by them. But something else has intruded into the world and turned them into harmful monsters which want to hurt other, untouched spirits."

Kairi asks, "Then this catalyst… could they be Hollows coming from another world? And they turn the ghosts in these worlds into Hollows?"

"That probably is the case," Namine answers.

"And they've been targeting Princesses of Heart?" Sora inquires.

"Princesses of Heart are pure people," Namine replies. "They possess hearts of pure light and the strong spiritual presence that affects the people around them. Kairi and I are on a whole different level, because I still exist as a separate identity, yet as Kairi's spirit. As long as Hollows are around, I'll continue to assert my existence as Kairi's spirit and grow stronger, which in turn will attract more Hollows."

"So we take Kairi away from the Hollows."

"Not happening," Kairi interjects. "We need to get into the spirit world and seal its Keyhole to prevent more Hollows from escaping as soon as possible. I'm not losing you two."

"Even with Kairi gone, you're still a target, Sora," Namine states plainly. "I know your memories of us would fade over time as we integrated more into you, but I'm surprised that you merged and forgot so quickly. There's something huge that you're missing. I'm not the only Nobody who rejoined with her Somebody."

"I… I have a Nobody?"

A flash of memories. A head of blond spikes in a completely white room. The same head emerging from the depths of a dark hood. Two Keyblades clashing against his, dancing on a stained glass platform. Standing on the tallest tower in the Castle That Never Was, facing somebody next to Namine. A flash of light racing past him as he fell into utter darkness, smirking at him before releasing pillars of light. Blonde spikes and blue eyes, but Sora can't remember his face or his name.

"I… I can't remember," he confesses finally.

Namine's colored clock ticks down to its final time interval. The clock itself begins to dissolve, red and green dust flaking off its edges to return to Namine and reform themselves as pencils. The air around them begins to move again, very slowly. Tentacles crawl back to life, moving as if through molasses.

Namine shakes her head sadly. "You've got to remember on your own," she asserts, standing up. She hugs her sketchpad to her body with her left arm, and ten normal-sized colored pencils plus two re-forming ones twirl in the air above her right palm. "Remember who your Nobody is and access the power to fight against the Hollows."

Kairi stands up next to Namine. "You'll help us?"

The pale spirit finds Kairi's hand with her own, and both glow in the moonlight. "As long as your body lives, I'll fight to defend it."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Spring break, and I've already updated two other stories in two different fandoms - Percy Jackson and The Glee Project. And then this story, a Kingdom Hearts fanfiction with Bleach elements. I certainly have strange tastes. I swear, someday I WILL FINISH A STORY. <em>


	9. Chapter 9

Kairi looks around frantically as the colored clock begins to dissolve, returning the four companions to normal time. She's spent the last ten minutes recovering from debilitating spear wounds, healing Riku, and holding onto Sora; it's only now that she looks around that she realizes that the Hollow is no longer in sight. The demolished mayor's house still lies in a pile of rubble, but the gigantic enemy that once sat on top of it seems to have disappeared. She turns to her spirit, Namine. "Where did the Hollow go?"

"That's right," Namine remembers. "Now that I'm out of your body, you can't sense spiritual objects as clearly." She flicks a finger and a white colored pencil soars towards Kairi, who snatches it out of the air. Immediately, the air shimmers, and Kairi is able to see the tentacled monster slowly lashing out at them.

Kairi tucks the pencil in a tiny zipper pocket at her waist; as she feels the slight pressure of the object against her hip, her Chain of Fate rattles and begins to fade away. "What's happening?"

"We're still connected," Namine assures. "Just… well, in Cid's technological terms, imagine it as a wireless connection, instead of a landline. Don't lose that pencil," she warns as the other colored pencils twirl around her.

Something huge and black rises up behind them. Before Sora or Kairi can move forward, though, Namine whirls around and makes a slashing motion. An orange pencil expands swiftly, leaving an angry amber streak hanging in midair. The bundle of tentacles pauses momentarily; then it tumbles apart as several severed ropes. "Go!"

A booming echo resounds around them as the clock finally fades away. Now with eleven colors at her disposal, Namine begins to sketch a gigantic mural in front of her. "Fend them off," she instructs as passes her sketchbook to Kairi.

"How do I use this?"

"It knows what to do."

Sora and Kairi look blankly at the inanimate object. "I sure hope so," Sora says nervously.

"Why don't we all just hide under this till you're done with whatever you're drawing?" Kairi proposes anxiously.

"It's not invincible," Namine retorts, her brow furrowed in concentration as she orchestrates her air diagram with both hands. Her pencils appear to blur together, until Kairi realizes they actually are dissolving from pencil into particle form. "It's more for deflecting blows that would otherwise incapacitate you."

The crack of a whip shatters the relative silence, and a cascade of tentacles pour down on top of them. Sora manages a small but trusting smile before switching keychains. Intertwining gold threads weave along the shaft of the weapon, and a heart topped by the crown pendant Sora wears around his neck become the teeth. With a roar, Sora leaps into the mess of black tentacles, moving at inhuman speed with unerring accuracy. His brain is processing events at an incredible rate; time doesn't slow down, he just speeds up. Firaga leaps unbidden to his mind as he tears through defensive tentacles like wet tissue paper; glowing blue particles flash around him as Sora aims _Ultima_ directly at the Hollow's mask in front of him.

Flames lick down the web of gold interwoven into the shaft. They pool in front of the crowned-heart teeth, engulfing the Keyblade. Sora can feel the immense power tearing through him, licking at his clothes and incinerating everything around him.

Then the power rushes out of him and explodes from _Ultima_ in a pillar of Firaga. It completely envelops the Hollowfied mayor and the mayor's gigantic tangle of tentacles and the crumbled rubble of the mayor's house, plus the wilting garden in the backyard and the scattered houses beyond. In the distance, a part of the Hinterlands forest is set afire.

All the tentacles around Sora go berserk, flopping around madly and withdrawing into the flaming body. Sora lands on the ground and stumbles back towards Namine and Kairi. A thin, keening scream rises weakly from the fiery entity, almost beyond the hearing capacity of humans.

Sora slashes _Ultima _twice, then slings the Keyblade over his shoulder. Turning around casually, he boasts, "You think that did it?"

Rancid breath washes over him. He's staring straight into a set of broken teeth within a set of broken teeth. A double maw ready to devour him. Sora feels his knees go weak and his sudden adrenaline rush leave him. Three Hollowfied residents of Halloween Town stand before him: an old hag now clutching his shoulders with her bony, liver-spotted hands; a small child in a simple nightgown smeared with bloody handprints; and a mummy that reeks of rotting flesh. Just the stench alone paralyzes Sora, and the double set of teeth leans closer to tear a chunk out of his head.

Then the tip of _Way to Dawn_ barely clips his nose. The bony hands anchored onto his shoulders dissolve into blue spirit particles as the body they're connected to is split cleanly in two, revealing a healthily sturdy Riku.

"Riku!" Sora yells, jumping to his feet. _Ultima _knocks the mummy shuffling towards him to the ground. "You're alright!"

Riku nods gruffly. "Thanks to you. And her." He leaps into the air and drives _Way to Dawn_ straight into the mummy's mask, shattering it. Within seconds, the monster dissolves away completely.

The two boys look at the lone child left over. It doesn't advance on them, but rather stands there motionlessly. Sora looks questioningly at Riku, who silently responds by lifting his Keyblade above his head in an openly aggressive manner.

"That's the last one," Riku growls. "Kill it, and our work here is done."

Sora glances back at the flaming pile of rubble. The Hollowfied mayor is motionless, though the coils of tentacles lying around still twitch feebly. The child in front of him, however, has nothing to do with this.

Sora puts a palm on Riku's chest, preventing him from moving forward. "He's just a kid," he defends. "He just happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time, but he's not—"

"He is what he is," Riku replies coolly. "He might have been innocent, but he's changed now."

Sora bites back his reply—that Riku had been in the same situation, and look how he turned out. But then he spots something trailing out of the back of the child's head. It appeared to be some sort of black cord, and it runs out of the child's head and into the ground. It was like Namine and Kairi's Chain of Fate, only with a black tentacle…

"Riku," Sora says urgently. "I think—"

He's interrupted as the main Hollow stirs suddenly, sending up a cloud of fiery sparks. All its remaining tentacles rise into the sky feebly, and Sora and Riku take ready stances; but then, each tentacle simply plunges itself into the ground and appears to burrow down.

Sora leaps into the air to avoid potential spikes rising from the ground, but none are forthcoming. It isn't until Sora lands that the first white-tipped tentacle re-emerges from the earth, rising upwards slowly. Riku severs it cleanly, but all around them, several white-tipped tentacles sprout from the ground like germinating plants on fast forward. Even as Sora severs two sprouts, three more rise up in their place.

One tentacle reaches four feet and pauses; then, with a slight crackle, the sharp white bud on the tentacle's end expands and explodes, belching out a mysterious white substance. This quickly molds itself into a discernable shape: another former resident of Halloween Town, except now with its face covered by hardened white substance transformed into a mask, and a large gaping hole in its chest.

The next couple minutes are a blur of feeling.

* * *

><p>The shadowed master on the white throne speaks unexpectedly, but the subordinate does not show any signs of surprise. "Yet another pawn enters. How… interesting."<p>

The subordinate closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them, his emerald green eyes reveal nothing. His face is an eerie blank slate; it would appear that his entire figure were carved of marble, if his strange green eyes did not pulsate with existence. Nothing else of his body indicates the presence of life but his intense pupils.

"Number Four."

The subordinate's pupils flicker at his title, but his eyes do not move. "Yes, master."

"Send a scout."


End file.
